Noteborn, Ron

Abstract [en]

The PRISMA in-orbit test-bed was launched in June 2010 to demonstrate strategies and technologies for formation flying and rendezvous. OHB Sweden is the prime contractor for the project which is funded by the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB) with support from DLR, CNES, and DTU. In early September of 2011, 15 months after launch, all primary mission objectives of the PRISMA formation flying satellites had been achieved and mission success was declared. Since a significant amount of delta-V capability still remained an open call for new experiments was issued, inviting both old and new experimenters to use the capabilities of the formation. Several interested parties took the opportunity to perform their own experiments with an existing platform, each coming with new mission objectives not previously planned to be flown on the PRISMA satellites. Some of these experiments were close to what had already been achieved within the nominal mission, but some included new ways of using the formation not envisioned by the spacecraft designers. The new experiments span from data collection in specific relative orbits, with a separation from a few meters to several kilometers, to entirely new modules within the on-board software. Changing from a pre-planned technology demonstration mission to operating a commercial resource required adaptation of the original operational concept, taking into account the different levels of experience of the customers and managing the satellites between experiments. This paper describes how these new mission objectives were integrated in operations and how a sometimes very short turn-around between initial concept and experiment execution was implemented with the aid of well established validation processes, high degrees of on-board autonomy and a flexible operations team.